The present invention relates generally to door locking bolt mechanisms, and manually operable means for the actuation of such bolts.
When such mechanisms are installed for utilization on aircraft doors, such as a cabin door mounted in the skin structure of the main passenger cabin, the conventional installation provides outside and inside handles which are selectively operable for the actuation of the bolts.
More specifically, one prior known arrangement has utilized a T-shaped inside handle which is secured to one end of a rotatably mounted main shaft in the door structure, this shaft being connected with an actuating crank that is operatively connected with the door bolts. An outside door handle comprises a single hand-grip lever that is pivoted at one end to the outer end of the main shaft for swinging movements between a retracted substantially flush seated position in a recess of an outside escutcheon plate so as to releasably latch the crank in a bolted position. A spring at the pivoted end of the handle normally urges the hand-grip lever into retracted position. Adjacent its pivoted end, the lever is provided with a roller which is adapted, upon rotation of the main shaft by the inside handle, to ride up an arcuate cam ramp and thus move the lever out of its latching recess as continued rotation of the main shaft moves the crank to a bolt unlocked position. The single outside hand-grip lever may also be utilized to actuate the crank and move it to a bolt unlocked position. For this operation, a finger may be inserted under the outer end of the lever, and by exerting a pulling force move the lever to a tilted unlatched extended position and then rotated to actuate the crank.
For some installations, it has been found that it would be advantageous to provide a latch or lock on the outside handle, which could be manually released from the door exterior. However, the provision of such an expedient poses a problem with respect to being able, through the actuation of the inside handle, to move the outside handle from its recessed position to its extended position.
The present invention comprises an improvement over the prior known structures, and proposes to provide an outside handle of the pivotal swingable type or pop-up type which normally occupies a generally flush locked or latching nonoperating position, and upon release is movable to a non-flush operating position. Unique camming means are provided for releasing the latch or lock of the pop-up handle type in response to actuation of the locking mechanism by the inside handle.
In the case of the swingable type outside handle, the camming means first releases the latch or lock and then functions to swingably move the handle from its flush position to the non-flush position. In the non-flush position, the outside handle thus provides the desirable feature in which it serves as a visual outside indication that the door has been unlocked from the inside.